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So with no new projects on the horizon (we’ve got some ideas, but haven’t started executing anything yet…we know, boring, lazy, not entertaining, etc.) and the holidays taking up all of our time, we figured we might share a quick post about what Christmas is like here in our new place!

As you know, I’m a big huge gigantic fan of Christmas. This is due, in part, to the fact that I was born on Christmas day. I know, ‘it’s amazing’, right? Joking aside, Christmas is super important to me. You can read all about my crazy obsession with Christmas tree ornaments here.

Now that we have so much more space, my Christmas decorating has been taken to a whole new level (of crazy)!

We have a bay window in the living room and a bow window in the kitchen now. These are two fantastic new places to add decorations that we couldn’t have otherwise accommodated in the past. I made a little pine, berry and candle/lantern display for the kitchen window:

I added my mom’s classic manger display to the bay window in the living room right next to the tree:

We also now have a mantle on our fake (it’s electric…boogie, woogie, woogie) fireplace, so of course I had to spruce this up with some lights, and some familiar old decorations that just didn’t really have a proper spot in the old place. I’ve got to admit, even though it’s a fake fireplace I am SO excited about this because we can actually hang our stockings by the chimney – with care, of course. 😉

As you saw in one of our previous new house/old house comparison posts (click here) we still have our coffee bar. However, there just so happens to be a very handy electrical outlet right above the mug rack, so I took full advantage of this by adding a little light display here too!

Of course we still have our tree, but now with the added space and bay window, we thought this would be a great opportunity to make the tree even more of a focal point. In our old house, we really had no choice but to kind of stuff the tree in the corner next to our couch. Now, we have the tree right in the window for all to see. So this makes for a nice display looking in from the outside and also a way better setup for enjoying the tree on the inside of the house. Don’t mind my fun Instagram filters.

And of course, our outside display is still just as fun. We are thinking we will probably add to this as years go by, but this is a good start for our first year in the new place (pardon the low lighting in these quick cell phone snaps). We also have these fun bushes now that we spiraled some lights around!:

How do you use your space to decorate for the holidays? Head over to our Facebook page to let us know!

P.S. – When we’re not blogging, we are posting photos to Instagram and pinning great/inspiring DIY projects and ideas for house and home. Be sure to follow us on Instagram and Pinterest as well to stay connected.

We wanted to make a quick post about something we’ve been working on for quite some time now…our bathroom theme! Introducing, the world’s cutest and most awesomely-themed bathroom (own horn = tooted). The theme for our bathroom is “I See London, I See France…” Pretty clever, huh?

I’m a total Pinterest freak – absorbing as much media as I possibly can at a clip, even if I’m never going to bake that fancy pie or DIY that pallet coffee table, I like seeing it, reading about it and being inspired. So, although Pinterest and the internet cannot take full credit for this idea, I must say I am always inspired by what I see out there. I’ve never seen or heard of anyone else doing this same theme for a bathroom. However, inspiration for the little details comes from all over:

White ceramic faux animal head: You’ve probably seen these before, mostly in the form of a deer an antelope, or some other long-horned creature. Ours comes in the form of the majestic, elegant creature that is…the English Bulldog. Our inspiration for the piece had to do with a few things: 1. It was 5 bucks at Christmas Tree Shops. 2. We like the faux animal head idea, especially the all-white look. And 3. This little guy:This 65-pound beast beauty is none other than Crumpler. Some of our devoted readers and followers know him well. For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure, just take it all in – this little bugger is a true English gent with a colorful personality and a face only a mother could love. Cheerio!

White floating shelves: We used this in a different space in our last house. Now that we have a normal-sized bathroom, we thought they would make a lot of sense in this space. Now we just need to really deck them out with some more London and France-themed things.

Canvas prints: These museum-quality canvas prints come from one of the many online spots where you can fashion your personal prints onto just about anything. I made both graphics in Photoshop and we used EasyCanvasPrints.com to get these fun and vibrant pieces of art slapped onto a canvas. Nice touch with the “Oui Oui”, right? Gotta love bathroom humor…

We also have an older piece of wall art featuring a sketched, black and white Big Ben. This fit perfectly with the theme, so of course it belongs in the bathroom.

We still have one blank wall to fill, which just means more London and France-themed fun to be had.

Our love of London comes from the time Andrew and I spent abroad, studying in Kingston-Upon-Thames back in college. You can read all about that here.

You may recall us mentioning our headboard and some changes we were making in our bedroom. Things are really coming together and the hardest part is over – picking out all the pieces and coordinating the headboard fabric with the rest of the look.

In our old bedroom, we had black accents, so naturally, we went with black headboards. The fabric we used was nice because it was sort of like a quilt, giving the headboard that pillow-y look and feel. It made a lot of sense at the time, but since then, we’ve become bored by this – headboard bored. We wanted to lighten and brighten in our new space, so it was time to ditch the dark colors.

I really wanted to be able to play with a pop of color and the style of the headboard in our new bedroom. With subdued aqua-colored bedding and light white curtains with an added pop of silver, I was sure to do just that. Here is what we picked:

We wanted something that looked more like a painting or a landscape as opposed to just a pattern like dots or stripes. I think this fabric does a great job of that. You may be surprised to hear that this fabric actually comes from a shower curtain! Yes – we I spent A LOT of time looking at fabrics, so when the standard fabric stores just weren’t going to cut it, I had to get resourceful. As it turns out, shower curtains are PERFECT for this project.

Buy some blank canvases from your local arts and crafts stores. Michaels or A.C. Moore will do the trick. They are pretty inexpensive, especially if you can catch a sale.

Measure your canvases. Jot down the dimensions before heading to step 3 below.

Find your fabric! This sounds like the easy part, but it’s really the hardest (see above). Make sure if you are ordering fabric by the yard you get the proper size with a little extra to spare. Keep in mind that you’re going to be wrapping about 2 inches of fabric around the back of the canvas on all sides to secure it with staples later in the project. Measure twice, cut once! If you find yourself buying a shower curtain for this project like we did, just one will do! It’s the perfect amount of fabric for the size typical queen-sized headboard.

Cut your fabric. I just laid the shower curtain on the floor, placed both canvases on top of it and that gave me a rough idea for where to cut. Cut two pieces, again, keeping in mind that you will be wrapping the fabric around the edges of the canvas on all sides.

Start with one canvas at a time. Place the canvas on top of the fabric so the printed side of your fabric will be wrapped around the front of the canvas.

Start with one side – any side – and start wrapping the fabric around the edge of the canvas, pulling it as tight as you can.

Get stapling! Staple all the way across the edge so the fabric will be secure. No need to overdo it.

Move onto the next side, giving the fabric a nice tuck and fold around the corner of the canvas. Now you want to start keeping everything very tight. This way, the fabric will be flush around the front of the canvas. Keep stapling all the way around and continue in this way for the remaining sides of the canvas.

It’s a lot like wrapping a present! When you get to the last side, you’ll just want to be sure you’re pulling everything tight and sealing off that final edge.

That’s it! Repeat steps 5 through 9 again on your second canvas. Then you’re all set to hang them!

We place ours on the wall behind our bed so that the bottom of the canvases is lined up with the top edge of the mattress. This gives the illusion that this headboard is part of the bed and not part of the wall. We use a nail at the top of each canvas, then we use those Command Velcro strips to secure the headboards even more. This way, when you’re resting with your pillow on them, they don’t shift around or fall off the wall.

It’s really that easy. What do you think?

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